News + Events

Annual Review Meeting Celebrates Lab Innovations

Photo: Jason Dorfman, CSAIL photographer

CSAIL members at the 2011 Annual Review Meeting.

30 June 2011

CSAIL members enjoyed a successful Annual Review Meeting last week featuring two days of invigorating research presentations, spirited discussion, a warm welcome for pending Director Anant Agarwal and a moving tribute to Director Victor Zue, who is stepping down at the end of the month.

Speaker presentations ranged from talks on image recognition and the study of human memory by Associate Professor Aude Oliva to the importance of enacting policy for the Web by Research Scientist Lalana Kagal. Associate Professor Russ Tedrake explained his work on a DARPA challenge to create a robotic ostrich that can run up to 25 miles per hour. Judy Brewer, director of the Web Accessibility Initiative, gave an in-depth look at the work of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on making the Web more accessible to individuals with disabilities, while Professor Michael Stonebraker encouraged his colleagues to collaborate with him on applying machine learning techniques to the challenge of data integration.

A Wild and Crazy Ideas Session brought forth a large variety of new initiatives and ideas for the lab, from suggestions for the best way to have your own Eureka moment to different means for tackling the problem of global heating to a new program aimed at bringing mobile technology to emerging regions and ideas for making the MIT campus more inviting and accessible.

Lab members celebrated the tenure of Director Victor Zue with humorous speeches, numerous toasts and a video chronicling Zue’s many achievements and accomplishments at CSAIL.